Where's Print to PDF on iPhone and iPad?

When Apple introduced AirPrint to iOS, they made it incredibly easy to send files right from your iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad to any compatible Wi-Fi printer in the vicinity. Unfortunately, what Apple didn't do was bring Print to PDF (Export as PDF) along for the ride. At least, not yet...

One of the great features of OS X on the Mac is exactly that — the ability to export almost anything and everything quickly and easily to a PDF file. It's something I've mentioned in the past when discussing OS X Mavericks features that'd be great to see in iOS 8. It's my understanding Print/Export to PDF was in the pipeline years ago, but simply never got polished and pushed out.

Apple's engineers already put in long hours and tremendous effort, and there's an opportunity cost to everything. Working on feature A means the same person or team can't be working on feature B at the same time. Priorities. Trade-offs. Focus. That's how software development works. It could well be that Print/Export to PDF wasn't considered a priority, or something that enough of Apple's customers would use or benefit from. Or it could simply be sitting in the queue, patiently waiting its turn in the tentpoles.

Either way, I'd still like to see it in iOS. Sure, there are screenshots that can capture the pixels on the display, there are Share sheets that can grab content as-is and send it on its way, and there are Print to PDF apps in the App Store that offer some form of the same functionality. But the ability to take any page of text and images, in any app, and quickly, easily, turn it into a PDF? That's be the kind of magic we've come to expect from Apple.

See something, make something, want it wrapped up nicely and neatly? Tap Share, tap Print, tap PDF, store it up on iCloud or Share it by any of the usual methods. That'd be a great bullet point on Keynote. If you think so too, please join me in letting Apple know just how much we'd appreciate Print to PDF in iOS 8!

But then it would make sense from Apple's point of view to include an "Open as PDF in" option to the general share menu and not to put in the AirPrint functionality. Of course the existence of such an option would still be up to each app, but it could be in all system apps.

Are there any current third party apps that can convert to PDF while retaining the actual, underlying page formatting? I used to use Adobe's CreatePDF until they killed off the service. I have since tried literally dozens of third party apps, and they all routinely botch up the formatting, especially when trying to convert Word docs containing any sort of special formatting. My guess as to why this is the case is that these apps perform the conversions directly on the device, and in many instances these Word docs don't show up properly using the iOS's built-in viewer either. I think a "true" solution would have to perform the conversion in the cloud, just like CreatePDF did. Anyone know of anything like that?

I started the year by looking at going paperless, and PDFs play a large part of my developing plan. While I don't print much from iOS (maybe half a dozen pages per year), I am starting to think in terms of PDFs. I could see iOS becoming a larger part of my PDF workflow if this feature was added. It might save me from breaking out the laptop at times. So please, Apple, add this (and iMessage quick reply, darn it).

I think Pages do that very well, I have a lot of documents there and sometimes I want them to be a PDF file so I just shared the file via email and Pages ask me how I'll like to send the document, as a Pages, Word, ePub or PDF document. I now you do need to download an app, but now that it's going to be free for all new devices i think it's a very good way to have that "Print to PDF"

Exactly that what I also need, print to PDF or an serious up to date Acrobat app from Adobe, not into all the apps on the app store, but all what i need is print as PDF from anywhere :(
the problem is hard to wish with APPLE, but no choice, can't be far away from iphone !

The iOS5 'Print To PDF' App used to do exactly this back in 2011 until Apple disabled it and removed it from the App Store - so it is certainly able to be done! See www.imore.com/apple-pulls-print-pdf-app-store for how it was done back then...

Agreed. File systems are in place already through third party's. Dropbox,Box,Evernote. Allowing these to be integrate with the mail.app would be all Apple needs to do. A simple setting in the mail settings to allow the mail.app to have access to these would be all that's needed. There are plenty of third party apps that do this already.

Would be great. I know there needs to be a landing point for the PDF, which would be iBooks. However, in my opinion, iBooks would need to have a little more functionality for that use. Maybe once iBooks is revamped a little our dreams would come true. Using 3rd party PDF software is a small hassle, but do-able.

Absolutely, Rene; with such strong PDF support in the Mac, lack thereof in iOS 7 really feels like something is missing. Apple should provide native Print-to-PDF support, without a doubt. Perhaps it just goes against Apple's grain of not creating a file-centric object; but PDF files are something we expect in this day and age. Please Apple, give us this PDF feature.

I have a convoluted way. Handyprint and Dropbox/Samba/afp Share
Set up Handyprint to print to PDF and store to a Dropbox Folder.
So you print using the normal iOS methods, and then access through Dropbox.
If you want to keep it homely or you don't like Dropbox, then any iOS samba/afp client will do, i use iFiles, just redirect handyprint to a shared folder of some description.
handyprint:http://www.netputing.com/applications/handyprint-v5/
ifiles:http://www.ifilesapp.com

Ok that would be nice. But what I really would like is someone that would make a portable printer that I could use out on the job. This is the one thing that android still has the advantage on you can use bluetooth .

I''d love to be able to print to pdf, it's been a basic mac feature for ages and ages now.
They could dump it in your iCloud space for the Preview app (or something that connects to the desktop). But I'd prefer an "Open in..." option so I can stick it in a receipts folder in Box or DropBox.

I'd also like to be able to define a printer as mine and be able to send to the print queue when I'm not home; to be clear I don't need it to print when I'm not home, I just want to send it to the queue and when I get home have it come out of the printer (like my Mac does). This is a Post-PC world you know, they need to give us a few new features to support that.

Print as PDF to Dropbox, give it a URL and it will turn it into a PDF, or, my favourite, copy & paster from a "text" receipt (like iTunes) in mail and it will convert that text into a shiny PDF for your accountant.

I can't believe there is not a comprehensive solution to this. The Safari solution will help... and I thank you for the tip, but I should be able to print anything I can print to AirPrint to PDF. Grrrr....